Sadly, as suspected – and in line with his CFO in 2009 – the reported death of Jan Peter Schmittmann was indeed suicide. The ex-CEO of ABN Amro hanged himself, but only after murdering his wife, Nally, and 22 year-ol daughter Babette. As Bloomberg reports, a farewell letter was found in the house, but authorities declined further comment on its contents. Schmittmann’s family was cited as saying in the statement that “we knew Jan Peter struggled with severe depression,” and added that their “first concern now is supporting the remaining daughter in coping with this indescribable grief.” Aweful…

Schmittmann joined ABN Amro Holding NV, once among Europe’s biggest banks, in 1983 as an assistant relationship manager and was named head of the lender’s Dutch unit in 2003. As a member of the bank’s executive board, he was responsible for restructuring it along the lines agreed by Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Fortis and Banco Santander SA in their three-way takeover of the lender in 2007.

A year after the biggest financial-services takeover in history, the credit crunch droveFortis to the verge of collapse, forcing the Netherlands to take over its Dutch banking and insurance units, including assets of the former ABN Amro in 2008. The Dutch asked Gerrit Zalm to lead the company now called ABN Amro Group NV.

FRENCH bank BNP Paribas has confirmed it has taken control of ailing finance group Fortis’s arms in Belgium and Luxembourg to create the “leading European bank in terms of deposits.”

The deal, thrashed out over a weekend of intense talks, leaves the Belgian and Luxembourg governments with reduced holdings in Fortis, which they partly nationaised a week earlier.

Under the deal, announced by Belgian and BNP officials in Brussels and official sources in Luxembourg, France’s biggest bank will take up to 75 per cent of Fortis’s Belgian operation leaving the other 25 per cent, a blocking minority, in the hands of the Belgian Government.

On the Luxembourg side, BNP Paribas will take 66 per cent of the shares leaving the Grand Duchy with 33 per cent, the source said.

FRANKFURT: As German leaders and bankers worked feverishly to rescue a lender considered too big to fail, the government announced Sunday that it would guarantee all private savings accounts in Germany – worth about €500 billion – in an effort to reinforce increasingly shaky confidence in the financial system.

Officials in Berlin were frantically trying to salvage a €35 billion, or $48 billion, bailout devised just a week ago for Hypo Real Estate, a major German property lender based in Munich and member of the benchmark stock index, after commercial banks withdrew their support, fearing greater losses.

The Dutch operations of Fortis, Europe’s largest victim of the credit crisis, have been nationalised in a €16.8bn (£13bn) deal aimed to calm investors in the troubled banking and insurance group.

Fortis is Europe’s largest victim of the credit crisis Photo: AFP

The Netherlands government stepped in to take over the assets, including buying Fortis’ interest in ABN Amro – the Dutch investment bank it jointly acquired last year in a consortium with Royal Bank of Scotland and Banco Santander. Shares in Fortis have tumbled almost 70pc this year as fears mounted that it had overstretched itself through its €24bn participation in the ABN Amro transaction.

Yesterday’s deal replaces an agreement struck on Sunday by the Belgium, Dutch and Luxembourg governments to rescue Fortis by pumping €11.2bn into the Belgian-Dutch bank. Under that deal, they would have taken a 49pc stake in the bank’s operations within each of their borders.

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) — Fortis, the largest Belgian financial-services firm, received an 11.2 billion-euro ($16.3 billion) rescue from Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg after investor confidence in the bank evaporated last week.

Belgium will buy 49 percent of Fortis’s Belgian banking unit for 4.7 billion euros, while the Netherlands will pay 4 billion euros for a similar stake in the Dutch banking business, the governments said in a statement late yesterday. Luxembourg will provide a 2.5 billion-euro loan convertible into 49 percent of Fortis’s banking division in that country.

Fortis is the largest European firm so far caught up in the global financial crisis that drove Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. into bankruptcy two weeks ago and prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to seek a $700 billion bank rescue package. Fortis dropped 35 percent last week in Brussels trading on concern the company would struggle to replenish capital depleted by the 24.2 billion- euro takeover of ABN Amro Holding NV units and credit writedowns.

The US stock market could suffer a devastating crash with shares losing a third of their value this week if Hank Paulson’s financial bailout plan fails, US Treasury officials have warned.

The financial system could face a meltdown of 1929 proportions unless US politicians succeed in their efforts for a $700bn rescue scheme, experts added.

The warning came as Republicans and Democrats met in Washington for a rare weekend debating session to attempt to seal agreement on the contentious plan, aimed at preventing a long-lasting recession in the US.

Officials close to Paulson are privately painting a far bleaker portrait of the fragility of the global economy than that advanced by President George W Bush in his televised address last week.

One Republican said that the message from government officials is that “the economy is dropping into the john.” He added: “We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days.

“What’s being put around behind the scenes is that we’re looking at 1930s stuff. We’re looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe. Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It’s going to be really, really nasty.”

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — Discussions between European, Dutch and Belgian officials on the future of Fortis, Belgium’s largest financial-services firm, carried into the evening as they sought a “solution” for the beleaguered bank.

Fortis fell a record 20 percent in Brussels trading two days ago on concern the firm would struggle to raise the 8.3 billion euros ($12.1 billion) it’s seeking to bolster reserves. The bank said Sept. 26 its financial position is “solid,” and replaced interim Chief Executive Officer Herman Verwilst with Filip Dierckx, who heads the banking unit. Managers and government officials are considering a possible sale of part or all of the bank, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation.

“Fortis failed to restore confidence on its own and that can only be done now with the help of the regulatory institutions or rivals,” said Corne van Zeijl, a senior portfolio manager at SNS Asset Management in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, who oversees about $1.1 billion, including Fortis shares.

There will be a depression anyway, but if the bailout “succeeds” there will be a complete meltdown in the not too distant future.Again the elite is pressing the fear button.
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World markets depend on Paulson’s plan Photo: GETTY

London shares could lose a fifth of their value and the money market faces collapse unless US politicians succeed with their financial bail-out plan, it has been warned.

A leading investor predicted that the FTSE 100 could drop by as much as 1,000 points on Monday if Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s $700bn (£380bn) plan fails. Such a fall would come close to matching the stock market crash of 1987.

The warning came as markets lurched their way to the end of another fraught week amid fears that the White House rescue operation could be derailed in Congress by conservative Republicans.

The Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers is this weekend locked in talks with a group of foreign government-backed investment funds in an effort to secure billions of dollars in new equity capital.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that Lehman has intensified talks in recent days with Korea Development Bank, the South Korean ­government-backed lender, about a capital injection of as much as $6bn (£3.3bn). KDB has drafted in bankers from the heavyweight advisory boutique Perella Weinberg to provide counsel on the talks, which could be concluded this week.